A new Twitter application, TweepMe, launched quietly late Tuesday evening. By yesterday morning many in Twitterville had their feathers ruffled and were squawking loudly to their fellow tweeps to not TweepMe. This fury of flying fluff was set off by the issuant retweeting of @Mashable. I saw @BertDecker flow by my tweet stream:

“BertDecker: RT @mashable TweepMe seems to totally misunderstand the point of Twitter. Not recommended. http://www.tweepme.com/“

(Warning! If you’re not using Twitter, you probably don’t want to read this blog post!)

I have great respect for both @Mashable and @BertDecker, but I don’t blurt retweets unless I appreciate or agree with the post. After reviewing their conversations and taking a healthy tour of the TweepMe site, I felt further investigation and thought was in order. As I do exchange tweets with @BertDecker, I sent him this reply:

“AlohaArleen: @BertDecker I check things out B 4 I bash them. Testing http://www.tweepme.com & getting feedback from users. Will let U know”

After carefully reviewing the entire TweepMe site and checking out who the program developer is, I signed up for the service. Please note this was not a light decision on my part! If you know me, you know I do not use any programs to follow, unfollow, or tweet on Twitter! I have run my Twitter account 100% manual from the web.

Signing up for TweepMe was the only way I could test the service and give it an honest review.

I began to reply to Twitter users regarding their questions and concerns they had directed at me regarding TweepMe.

What IS TweepMe?

• TweepMe enables people who sign up for the TweepMe service to automatically follow others with their Twitter account who have also signed up for the TweepMe service.
• The user may define his/her own limit of how many other users they will follow per hour (up to 50 – though the developer is now limiting users to a maximum of 30 follows per hour during the beta period)
• This is a mutual follow program. Only those sign up for the service will be followed by others who sign up for the service.
• Following others is completed in rounds. For example; if you had a limit of 30 follows per hour, your account would follow no more than 5 new users every 10 minutes. It could be less.
• Because follows are done in rounds, it may take hours, days, or weeks, to be followed automatically by those who you follow.
• Everyone using TweepMe will get more out of the program if they routinely check their new followers and follow them back immediately.
• As always with Twitter, anyone can always unfollow you. And you can unfollow anyone you chose to unfollow.

The first 1,000 followers receive the TweepMe service for free – for life! From user 1,001 on TweepMe would cost a monthly fee of less than ten dollars. I went back to the site to check the dollar amount, yet it seems to have been taken down. (I believe it said $8.95 a month originally.) I did get one of the first 1,000 free accounts, but they were quickly gone.

I sent TweepMe an email suggesting they extend the free offer to the first 5,000 accounts.

Then I checked my email. I’d had a response from using the “Feedback” section of TweepMe:

“Looks like Twitter may have shut us down. – TweepMe”

My next thought was, “That was the shortest lived application on Twitter yet!”

The Twitter account @TweepMe was suspended. Questions regarding TweepMe continued to pour in. Clearly people wanted this service! But, under the circumstances, I could only reply that they were being shut down and there was no point to signing up.

A couple hours later, I got another email and a tweet from them… TweepMe was up and working, PLUS the free offer was extended to the first 5,000 users! You bet I tweeted that up for people to take advantage of!

Also good to note: All those who paid for TweepMe subscriptions after the initial 1,000 free offers were taken are having their money reimbursed. This was a decision made immediately upon increasing the number of free subscriptions to 5,000.

And the controversy again pursued. Through the wee hours of the morning I shared my humbled perspective on following. Here’s the bottom line for me:

• I can learn something from everyone, thus it is my honor to follow everyone.
• Reading my “Home” page on Twitter (following 57K) is like taking the pulse of the world.
  It’s a beautiful view!

It was a little after 2:00 am here in Hawaii, when I called TweepMe programmer and designer, Bobby Ullery.

The TweepMe Programmer:

Bobby, 24 years old, has been coding half his life. He’s a bit shy so we’ll keep this biography part simple. Bobby owns his own company with prominent clients (I’d already checked out that part). Bobby just wants to fill a need with the TweepMe application – Help Twitter users who want, and perhaps need, additional followers add them, and make it easy to do.

Why charge for TweepMe?

The cost of servers, general overhead, and labor for such an application can be extensive. (I think programmers should make money when they provide valuable service!) Bobby’s not looking to get rich off of TweepMe, just make sure the bills are paid.

Suspended!

I asked, “Bobby, your Twitter account @TweepMe got suspended. Do you know why?”

“We were using a hummingbird program to find accounts that would automatically follow accounts back that followed them. This way we would have accounts for our initial users to start adding followers right away. We shouldn’t have done that, and we aren’t going to do it again,” said Bobby. “We are working with Twitter now to get the @TweepMe account reinstated.”

What can TweepMe users expect now from using the service?

Bobby said, “Although users can limit the number of Twitter accounts they follow per hour, up to 50 maximum, we’ll be setting the number lower initially. If a user sets their limit at 30 follows per hour, they’ll see less. We want to make sure that people don’t max out the number of calls per hour their account makes to Twitter’s API if they are using another application such as TweetDeck.”

The Twitter API has a limit of 100 calls (requests) per account per hour.

Why does TweepMe require the use of a user’s password?

“The TweepMe program is following other users. It’s a function done from inside an account. That requires a password, and it is also a call to the Twitter API from the users account,” said Bobby.

I shared with Bobby that people who don’t want to do automatic follows with their Twitter accounts are concerned about the impact TweepMe will have on them. Bobby assured me that they are no longer looking for accounts with automatic follow backs enabled. TweepMe will only have user accounts follow others who have signed up for the service.

What plans does Bobby have for TweepMe in the future?

“We are looking at several different ways to give users more flexibility and control in regards to whom they follow, but that may require a separate application. We are also looking into how to provide additional data on the TweepMe activity to the users. Currently, there is no way to tell if someone followed you because TweepMe followed you on behalf of another user, or for some other reason.”

I asked Bobby, “Anything you want to add?”

“Our purpose with TweetMe is to provide Twitter users who want more followers a simple and consistent way to add those who want to be followed, and will want to follow them back,” said Bobby.

He went on to request, “I hope all our users take advantage of the Feedback Tab on the side of the site pages! We want to hear everyone’s suggestions, complaints, moans and groans. It’s all important for us to make TweepMe everything people want it to be.”

Are you one of those worried about receiving unwanted followers?
Be glad TweepMe has arrived in Twitterville! It only makes sense that the more successful TweepMe is; the less you will have to worry about accounts following you simply for the sake of wanting you to follow them back!

People come to Twitterville for different reasons. TweepMe is a tool which can help keep it a harmonious community. It’s your decision to use it, or not.

What are your thoughts? Any and all comments are welcome!
(Note: Any comments with vulgarities will be pulled)

Aloha!
Arleen Anderson